By monitoring the vibrations from critical components inside a hydraulic pump, fan, blower or compressor, companies can improve their plant efficiencies, eliminate production downtime and increase the operating life and reliability of plant equipment, says Ian Taylor of Corus Northern Engineering Services (CNES).Although the cost of a component inside a hydraulic pump, such as a rolling element bearing, rotor or fastener, is often very small compared to the total cost of the pump, the cost of production downtime and any consequential losses as a result of a component failure, are often significant.
For a processing plant, the typical cost of production downtime can equate to hundreds of thousands of pounds per day. Lost production in a paper mill, for example, equates to around